Judith Whitman falls for Willy Blunt as a teenager in Nebraska but abandons him to her already-set life plan: college and beyond. When she suspects her husband Malcolm’s infidelity, she begins to daydream of Willy and what could have been. McNeal’s writing is evocative and beautiful and he oddly captures the electric draw of first love — how do men like he and Wally Lamb write so well for women?!   But when Judith travels from LA back to Nebraska to meet Willy 25 years later, the novel takes on a creepy tone that had me feeling like Flannery O’Connor had been invited to the party. I kept waiting for Willy to pull out a gun. The ending left me discomfited.
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